I
sit down to this column fresh from a remarkable conference called Pop!Tech
where attendees get to experience truly "Big Thinkers" as
they contemplate what all this darn technology really means and where
it's headed. Boats--let alone charts--were never mentioned,
but the conference, along with some recent whiz-bang mapping developments,
inspires me to engage you in some big thinking.

For
starters, let us marvel at how rapidly and pervasively constant GPS plotting
on digital charts has rocked the practice of navigation. For much of the
last century, we developed some pretty amazing electronics, but they were
always assistants to a pencil-on-chart process. Then in little more than
a decade, plotters and PCs became the center of the work. Now I'm
seeing plotters installed on skiffs, and half the inquiries coming to
my inbox are from boaters--albeit many of them cautious and/or skeptical--interested
in making the transition. Heck, I myself have a pocket-size gizmo that
shows me where I am on a picture-perfect image of a paper chart.

Note
my emphasis on the paper-like quality of the digital image. Most of us
want our electronic chart tables to be familiar, and the manufacturers
are doing a pretty good job of satisfying us. In terms of iconography,
scales, and much more, digital charts are a lot like paper ones. But a
theme that courses through Pop!Tech is how our species is destined to
invent whatever we can invent, regardless of the consequences. When you're
talking about biotech and robotics, that's scary. Applied to cartography,
the relentless force of innovation gets you the wild new chart types that
illustrate this column. I have no doubt that many navigators are going
to look at the latest from companies like Maptech, Raymarine, and Nobeltec
and say, "Hell, no!" I somewhat share the feeling, but (post-Pop!Tech)
I am wondering just how long we'll cling to a paper metaphor in
a digital world.

Certainly
the paper books related to navigation are going away at a rapid rate.
Consider tide tables. It used to be that you'd laboriously scan
an index to find a tide station that was close to your location, for which
you'd be rewarded with a terse summation of the day's highs
and lows. Now most plotters use a screen icon or "find nearest"
feature that takes you quickly to a tide graph that contains a lot more
information in a much easier-to-understand format. Some PC programs will
even animate the tides and resultant currents right on the chart. And
so forth with light lists, pilot books, cruising guides, etc. All the
interesting information that couldn't fit on a two-dimensional map
can now be put where it geo-positionally belongs, with various icons and
overlays.

Maptech,
arguably the leader in paper-like digital charts, has also always been
good with this collateral data. Now check out the disconcerting "spherical
view" that's been added to the latest version of Offshore
Navigator, which, by the way, is a significant update in many ways. At
first it looks like a paper chart wrapped around a basketball. However,
thinking big, you have to question how much of the apparent distortion
is in the eye of the beholder. Actually it's paper charts that have
always suffered some deformation, known as projection, since it is impossible
to accurately model the curved surface of the earth on a flat plane. To
some extent, spherical view offers a new level of realism. On a more utilitarian
level, it's also quite handy for maximizing situational awareness
on today's relatively small electronic chart tables, magnifying
detail close to the boat while still showing general info about what's
farther away.